


Are We There Yet? (or: The One Where The Road Trip Had Metaphysical Implications)

by eponymous_rose



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-06-05 12:58:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15171260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eponymous_rose/pseuds/eponymous_rose
Summary: Blamethis post. The Stormlord, the Traveler, and Eyeball McGee embark on a road trip to get their followers out of a jam.





	Are We There Yet? (or: The One Where The Road Trip Had Metaphysical Implications)

“Look,” he says, and grins. “One-time-only deal. Win-win. Win-win-win, really. Just a few quick stops and we’ll have it all under control. What do you say?”

There’s a rumble of thunder that makes the ragged cliffside under his feet think very, very hard about the appeal of crumbling away into nothingness.

The Traveler taps one finger against his chin, then offers, “And I’ll stop pointing out how much your holy symbol looks like goatse.”

A flash of lightning, the Stormlord’s jagged grin across the sky. “You have a deal.”

—

The return journey across the Divine Gate is unpleasant at the best of times, even for one as intimately and carnally acquainted with interdimensional fuckery as the Traveler. Oh, sure, there are the implications that this travel is expressly forbidden by one of the few semi-coherent acts of mortal-immortal cooperation in existence, and there are all the metaphysical and metalegal implications of dragging a figure to the wrong side of it, but mostly it just makes his teeth itch and his left nostril go all cold.

He’s still sneezing when they emerge into the Prime Material Plane. The Stormlord, having deigned to provide a really unnecessarily buff avatar form to accompany him, slaps him on the back so hard he sees galaxies.

“Thanks,” the Traveler says, only it comes out closer to “Flurgh,” because they’re under fathoms and fathoms of water and also probably drowning. With a thought, he remedies that particular situation with a terribly impressive means of breathing underwater that’s definitely nothing so mundane as a relatively low-level magical spell.

He stares into the abyss. The abyss stares hungrily back. It gets a bit weird.

“I brought cookies,” he says. “And by ‘cookies’, I mean 'absurdly powerful artifacts to feed your weird magic vore fetish’.”

“CONSUME,” the abyss says. Just a little too eagerly. You know? Like, the Traveler’s definitely got no room to judge, everyone’s got their thing, but eh, little uncomfortable.

—

As it turns out, having divine powers makes the space between moments stretch like eons, or whatever, and what that means is that you can travel absurd distances with a thought, but it’ll still seem to take for-fucking-ever.

“So,” he says, turning to Big McLargeHuge. “God stuff, huh?”

Smoke ManMuscle shrugs, muscles rippling. Muscularly. “You are a pretender,” Splint ChestHair says, in a voice like thunder. “We suffer your existence because you amuse us.”

“Uh-huh,” he says, and cocks his head toward Eyeball McGee.

“PROVOKE.”

The Traveler considers, then shrugs. “Yeah, pretty much.”

—

By the time they get where they’re going, no time has passed at all, and yet they’ve *still* managed to get there a bit too late. Possibly because they couldn’t agree whether to travel via the echo of rumbling thunder in the mountains, the crash of distant waves, or just a fucking door like any normal godly being.

Regardless, they’re left standing/hovering/existing-by-proxy in a quiet field, staring at three very baffled, increasingly concerned, and entirely not-in-peril mortals.

The half-orc pauses midway through chewing on a strip of dried meat. “Uh,” he says.

In a valiant attempt at picking up the conversational slack, the aasimar, polishing her sword, breaks in with, “Um.”

It’s Jester who finally breaks the weird vibe, shoving to her feet and slamming into the Traveler with a hug so tight he nearly has to remember his totally-impressive-breathing-underwater thing again. “I knew you would come back!”

He grins down at the top of her head and ruffles her hair; apart from the few flakes of dried blood in it, she seems unharmed. They all do. “We thought you were in trouble.”

The aasimar looks at the half-orc. “Um,” she says, again, and he adds his own carefully considered, “Uh.”

Jester laughs. “We were in so much trouble, you guys! But we figured a way out. It was super complicated and really cool, and now we’re trying to find the rest of our friends.” She beams. “Was this a test for us?”

“Totally,” the Traveler says. “Absolutely. Super-duper a test. Good job passing it.” He glances over to the others with a prompting nod. Slate FistCrunch gives the aasimar a thumbs-up, which she returns, awkwardly. The eldritch abomination regards the half-orc for a long moment, then booms, “WE’RE GOOD.”

“Neat,” the Traveler says, and snaps them back out of this plane of existence.

—

“I am so glad I bothered to send you my avatar for that excursion,” the Stormlord says. Sarcasm really doesn’t work when it’s coming via a rumbling boom that splits the very molecules of the air.

“Gotta keep 'em guessing?” The Traveler shrugs. “Also? Little bored. Thought a roadtrip might be fun.”

“LEARN.”

The Traveler pats the eldritch horror on the shifting, slithering approximation of its back. “Yes, yes, we all learned a lot about ourselves and each other. The real roadtrip was the friends we made along the way.”

“Fair warning, trickster: if you pass under my gaze again, I will annihilate you.”

“You promise these things,” the Traveler says, morosely, “but then you never write.”

“POTENTIAL.”

The thunder grumbles to a meditative silence for a moment. “That is a good point. It is important, sometimes, to ensure that we do not remain completely detached from the affairs of mortals. The Divine Gate, every century, feels more like an act of cowardice to my mind.”

“Cool, cool.” The Traveler sketches a bow. “See? We’re all friends now, we’ll never speak of this again, and we’ve each got a particularly dedicated follower now who’s probably going to spread our good names to all sorts of interesting people. What did I say? Win-win-win.”

“WATCHING.”

“Creepy,” the Stormlord and the Traveler say in unison. The Stormlord sighs a wind that travels with the weight of a continent behind it. “Begone. Stay away.”

“Can’t make promises,” the Traveler says, and laughs. “We do work in mysterious ways.”


End file.
